v. 222. _In lust and in lykyng_] See note, p. 98. v. 23.
v. 223. _whytyng_] So in our early dramas, _whiting-mop_ (young whiting) is a cant term for a nice young woman, a tender creature: see Puttenham’s _Arte of E. P_., 1589. p. 184., and note in my ed. of Webster’s _Works_, in. 37.
v. 224. _mullyng_] This term of endearment occurs in the _Coventry Mysteries_, applied by one of the shepherds to the infant Saviour;
“Thow I be the last that take my leve ȝit fayre _mullynge_ take it nat at no greve.”
Compare also Hormanni _Vulgaria_: “This is a fayre and swete _mullynge_. Blandus est _puerulus_ insigni festiuitate.” Sig. dd vii. ed. 1530.
—— _mytyng_] In the _Towneley Mysteries_, one of the shepherds says to the infant Saviour,
“Haylle, so as I can, haylle, praty _mytyng_!”
and Jamieson gives _myting_ as a fondling designation for a child, _Et. Dict. of Scot. Lang._—In our author’s third poem _Against Garnesche_, v. 115. vol. i. 123, “myteyng”—(but used as a term of contempt)—is, as here, the rhyme to “wyteyng.”
Since writing the above note, I have met with a passage in the comedy called _Wily Beguilde_, which might be adduced in support of the reading, “nytyng;” but I still think that “mytyng” is the true one: the dramatist evidently recollected Skelton’s poem, in the ed. of which he had found “nytyng,” “nittinge,” or “nittine:”—“Comely Pegge, my _nutting_, my sweeting, my Loue, my doue, my honnie, my bonnie, my ducke, my deare and my deareling.” Sig. C 4. ed. 1606.
Page 102. v. 225. _His nobbes and his conny_] So in a song in _The Triall of Treasure_, 1567;
—— _bonny_] i. e. precious one (rather than—beautiful one,—for it has the epithet “prety”).
v. 229. _This make I my falyre fonny_] _This_, i. e. Thus; see note, p. 86. v. 38: it has been suggested that _falyre_ means fellow; which I doubt: _fonny_ is, I suppose, foolishly amorous; compare—
“As freshly then thou shalt begin to _fonne_ And dote in loue.”
Chaucer’s _Court of Loue_,—_Workes_, fol. 329. ed. 1602.
“With kissing, and with clapping, _I gert the carill fon_.”
Dunbar’s _Tua Maryit Wemen and The Wedo_, _Poems_, i. 71. ed. Laing.
v. 250. _a skellet_] i. e. a skillet, a small kettle: in Suffolk it means a brass perforated implement for skimming the cream off milk; see Moor’s _Suff. Words_.